The Prince
by Sorrel
Summary: AU. The kid Clark rescues turns out to be the younger brother of the billionaire he’d slept with the summer before. Things are about to get very complicated, and in the middle of the sex and intrigue, is Julian. ClarkLex, ClarkJulian. Slash.
1. Chapter 1

**Part One.

* * *

**

It was odd, Clark thought, how eager people were to pretend that things were fine when they were so very obviously anything but.

Pete was all hearty backslaps whenever he saw Clark and wary glances when he thought Clark wasn't looking. Lana looked at him with big, sad eyes, completely unable to understand why he was so distant. And his parents were still walking on eggshells around him, like if they said the wrong thing he'd leave again.

Which was closer to the truth than he was willing to admit, but it was all the tip-toeing that was really getting to him. He'd much rather a good shouting match to clear the air, and he thought his Dad felt the same way, but he was pretty sure his mom couldn't take it, so he nodded and smiled and went along with their fiction that everything was okay.

Chloe was the only one who wasn't careful around him. When she'd found out that he was thinking about leaving again, she'd smacked him a good one on the back of the head, and he'd let himself be soothed. This was where he was supposed to be. Metropolis would wait till he'd graduated. For now, Smallville was his home.

But he did miss Metropolis. So, on clear nights like this, he'd climb the old windmill and sit there for hours, looking at the lights of the city in the distance. He could be there in just a couple minutes if he really put the burn on, but… No. It didn't feel quite right. He'd rather sit here and watch, instead.

Off to one side, he could hear the roar of a crowd, and he knew that the Crows had just scored a touchdown. The homecoming game, he thought. He'd never been. He'd been a bit tied up his first year, and his second he'd taken Chloe out to dinner in Metropolis because he'd wanted to stay away from any natural disasters involving Lana that would require rescuing. Chloe had had enough of that at their Spring Formal.

Chloe, he thought with a smile. Chloe, his best friend. The only girl he'd ever thought he might really love. The only person he'd ever told the secret of his origins. She'd been stunned, he remembered. And maybe a little afraid. But then she'd kissed him, and he'd known that things were okay.

They'd just fallen out of love, he supposed. Even before the trouble he'd had with Jor-El that had led to his eventual breakdown. For once he hadn't let her down. They'd drifted as a couple, and when she finally ended things between them, it was just a mercy killing. They were still closer than close, but there was no kissing between them, no romance. It was better this way. He hoped she was having a good time at the game, and that she would have a good time at the dance later. He'd hear about it tomorrow, he was sure.

Out of habit, he tuned up his hearing and started listening in "sweeps" across the town. Sometimes, if he checked often enough, he could stop mutant killings before they happened. It was worth a try, anyway.

Nothing over most of Smallville, save for the soft mooing of cows and the noise from the football game. But there, a couple miles away, in a cornfield- soft, panicked breathing, little whimpers of pain, a breathy, "Help me." The voice was male, and sounded young.

Scarecrow.

Clark was down the ladder and in the field in just a breath, the force of his anger giving him extra speed. The same damn cross he'd been put on, Clark thought furiously. He'd torn it down once Chloe had gotten him free, but apparently they built it up again. Whitney Fordman had put a stop to the practice after Lana had found out what he'd done to Clark and put the fear of God into him, but Whitney was gone and apparently the new quarterback had thought it would be a good idea to start doing it again.

They'd have a lesson in manners, and soon. At the moment, though, Clark had to get the kid off the cross.

"H-help me," the kid stuttered through cold lips. "Please."

"Easy, I'm gonna get you down," Clark said. "Just hold on."

The kid nodded, his mouth pressed into a tight line. He was a brave one, Clark thought with admiration. Clark well remembered the pain and chill, and even with kryptonite against his skin he'd been much stronger than this kid, who looked like a good strong wind could blow him over.

Clark undid the knots with quick fingers, and caught the kid as he started to slide to the ground. "Easy," he said again, holding him up with one arm around his waist. Jesus, the kid was thin. "I've got you."

"Th-thanks," the kid said, shivering. "Can you hand me my clothes? They're over there." He pointed at a small pile of cloth, and Clark made sure that he was able to stand on his own before retrieving them.

He needed Clark's help to get dressed, but Clark didn't mind. Clark had healed up as soon as the kryptonite had left his skin, but this kid had been hanging by his arms for the last three hours or so, and his muscles were so stiff he could barely move. Clark was actually impressed that he was able to move at all, considering.

"I'm sorry," the kid said. He hadn't looked Clark in the eye once, just kept his head ducked down as Clark swiftly did up the buttons of his shirt. Embarrassed, Clark guessed.

"Don't be," Clark said. "Seriously. It's the dicks that did this to you who have reason to be sorry."

"Really?" the kid said. His chin lifted a little, like he was actually considering looking away from his toes.

"Really," Clark said. "And they will be. Trust me."

The kid looked up at that, startled alarm in his surprisingly blue eyes. The kid had ginger-gold eyelashes, Clark noticed absently. And freckles.

"Oh, don't do it because of me, please," he said, his eyes wide. "I don't want to cause trouble."

"You're not," Clark said. "They need a lesson in manners."

"They'll still blame me."

Stubborn. "No, they'll blame me," Clark said, and then grinned his Kal smile, all wide and feral and overlong canines. "And when I'm finished with them, they'll slit their own wrists before stringing someone else up again."

"Oh," the kid said. He looked a little afraid. Clark sighed.

"I was the scarecrow my freshman year," he explained. "It was why I came here, to check and make sure they hadn't done it to someone else." Well, he would have if he hadn't been able to hear the kid from miles away, anyway.

"Oh!" The kid looked a lot less afraid. Good. "So they stopped, after you?"

Clark smiled. "The quarterback who did it, his girlfriend was friends with me. That's why he did it, 'cause he was jealous. When Lana found out, she kicked his ass, and he put a stop to it. He graduated last year, though."

"What grade are you in?" the kid asked. Now that he was dressed and apparently reassured of Clark's lack of psycho tendencies, his nervousness had disappeared, and all that was left in his eyes was a bright, birdlike curiosity. It reminded Clark forcibly of someone, but he couldn't think who.

"Junior," Clark said easily. "What about you? You're new here, aren't you?"

The kid nodded, blushing a little again. "I'm a junior, too," he said. "And yeah, we just moved here."

Ah. That would explain why they'd picked on the kid. Normally they went after freshmen, but a new kid, especially one as delicate-looking as this, would be too tempting to resist. Clark really, really wanted to hurt the new quarterback.

"Well, you have at least one new friend," he said, and put out his hand to shake. "I'm Clark."

"Julian," the kid said, taking it. His hand was thin, with long fingers. An artist's hand. It was swallowed in Clark's much larger palm. There were freckles on his wrist, too, disappearing into the cuff of his rumpled shirt. Clark suspected that he had them all over. Curse of a red-head, he supposed.

"Gonna take you forever to detangle that," he asked, nodding towards the long red strands. "Looks like they messed it up but good."

Julian blushed and wrapped his arms around himself, defensively. "Yeah," he mumbled. "They rubbed it in the dirt and stuff. Said it made me look like a f-fag." Julian stumbled over the words, his blush darkening. He also looked down at his toes again.

"I'll kill them," Clark said, without thinking. Julian looked up again, nervous.

Had that been a growl? Oops.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, you know," Clark said, conversationally. Julian jumped, as if he hadn't expected Clark to notice his fear. God, where was this kid from? Even out here in Smallville teenagers learned to hide their thoughts better. Though Smallville, home of the heartland freaks, was probably not the best example.

"I know," Julian said. "It's just… Well, I haven't been here very long, and I thought I might make new friends, only everyone seems to hate my family and I don't know anyone and then this happened and my brother's going to _kill_ me-"

Clark cut him off with a hand on his shoulder, then turned him to study his face when Julian shut up. He was surprised he hadn't seen it before, honestly. The shoulder-length hair had thrown him, but even so, he looked exactly like a younger version of his brother.

"You're Lex Luthor's brother," he said, surprised. Julian looked at him, a little warily.

"You know Lex?"

"I've met him a couple of times," Clark said evasively. Fucked him a couple times was more like it. Lex had been one of the more interesting times he'd had in Metropolis last summer, and one of the few that wasn't illegal and immoral. "You look just like him."

Julian beamed at him, like that was exactly the right thing to say. Clark was a little blinded by the force of that smile. Wow.

"Didn't expect to get that kind of reaction, but okay," Clark said. Julian's smile turned a little bashful.

"You know how everyone wanted to be a movie star or a fireman or something when they were kids?" Julian said. "I always wanted to grow up just like my brother. He's the best. Took me in when Mom and Dad died."

"He's one of a kind, no doubt about it," Clark said. Then changed the subject. "But he'll be worried, right? And we need to get you the hell out of this cornfield, anyway."

"He doesn't expect me back till after the game," Julian said. He followed Clark anyway. "And I was going to go to the Talon afterwards."

"Then you've got an hour or two of leeway," Clark said. "So, decision time. I can get your brother to pick us up, or I can call my friend Chloe and we can go back to her house to patch you up some before you have to go home. Which will it be?"

"Your friend's house," Julian said without hesitation. "I won't be able to leave the house till I'm thirty if I go home like this."

"Yeah, I know the feeling," Clark said. Even if it didn't really apply to his life anymore, the way things were going with his parents. But Julian didn't need to know about his problems. "Alright, let me call Chloe."

Chloe was more than willing to come and pick them up, and she spent the entire ten-minute drive ranting about "those fucking jockstraps" on the phone with Clark. Clark listened patiently, and when she didn't show any sign of winding down after the first couple of minutes, he beckoned Julian over and bent down so they could both listen to her. Julian bit his lip to muffle his laughter, and Clark found himself watching the movement before he glanced away.

Chloe had a blanket in the trunk of her car, and Clark wrapped it around Julian's shivering frame before wedging himself in the backseat of the car. Julian looked like a little prince in the front seat, mussed hair and tacky lime-green blanket not withstanding, and Clark caught himself smiling at him as he chatted with Chloe. Julian was a whole world of unfinished beauty and a sweet heart, and if Clark wasn't careful he was going to get himself into some real trouble.

He did finally realize who Julian reminded him of. Lex, of course, because of the physical resemblance, but the rest of it- well, he and Chloe were like two peas in a pod. Watching them talk was like watching two long-lost twins reunited, despite the fact they'd never before met and the trying circumstances. If Lex didn't pull Julian out of Smallville High because of this, Clark would bet any amount of money that Chloe had Julian on the Torch staff within the week.

When they got back to Chloe's house Clark followed the two of them inside. Her Dad was in Metropolis all night for a meeting, and Lana was at the game, still, and would be getting ready in the back room of the Talon, so there was no one to see them.

Chloe took charge, as usual, and within minutes she had Julian locked in the bathroom and soaking some of his aches away. Clark waited till he was sure that she had everything in hand, then told her where he was going.

"Julian's going to wonder where you went," she told him.

"I need to tell him," Clark said.

"Is that a good idea?" she asked, her eyebrows raised. "Or were you just bragging when you told me-"

"No, I wasn't," he cut her off. "But I lived here first. He'll just have to get used to me."

"Lex is no one to be played with, Clark," she warned.

"I'm not playing any game, Chlo," Clark said. "I'm just telling him what happened to his little brother."

"Be careful anyway," she said.

"When am I not?" he asked with a dashing grin, and blurred away before she could start a list.

* * *

Lex was in his office, working on the transfer paperwork, when Davidson came in, silent as always. "Mr. Luthor, sir, there's a young man here to see you."

Lex would never really get used to being called that. Even five years later, he still had to stop himself from looking around for his Dad.

"Send him in," he said, not looking up from his desk. Five minutes later, a pair of booted footsteps halted in his doorway, and he looked up.

His breath caught in his throat. "Kal," he said. He was wearing baggy jeans, and the shirt was flannel, and he'd apparently forgotten about the existence of styling gel, but it was still unmistakably the beautiful psycho Lex remembered.

"It's Clark actually," he said.

"What are you doing here?"

"I live in Smallville," Clark said, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth. "I hate to break it to you, but I was here first."

"And what are you doing here, in my home?"

Clark's smile disappeared. "Your brother was attacked by a bunch of jocks this afternoon," he said, and continued before Lex could surge out of his seat. "He's fine, just a little sore. It's a local tradition to string up a freshman like a scarecrow the night of the homecoming game. I guess your brother, being the new kid and all, was too much to resist even though he's a junior."

"I'll kill them," Lex gritted out.

"I'll handle it," Clark said.

"By killing them?" Lex asked, one brow arched at him.

"Well, I was gonna say by threatening them, reporting them, and getting them suspended, but…" Clark trailed off and shrugged.

"Not good enough," Lex said. And it wasn't. Not for the fuckers who'd hurt his baby brother. "Besides, since when do you advocate the nonviolent way?"

"People change, Lex," he said.

"I doubt it," Lex said. "What's your game?"

"No game," Clark said. "This is who I really am. I'm just a humble farmer's son. A real salt-of-the-earth type." He smiled, a little tiredly. "You're the last person to talk about change, you know."

"Just what is that supposed to mean?" Trust Kal, whatever his incarnation, to turn things around on him. He was even better at it than Lex.

"You think I'd even play with someone I hadn't checked out, much less spend a week in bed with them? I asked around. Before your father died, you partied harder than I ever did. Took every drug you could find, fucked everyone who came your way." Clark's smile this time had a lot more edge. "And now you're a respectable businessman. Don't talk to me about change."

"You ripped off half the banks in Metropolis," Lex said. "You worked for Morgan fucking Edge. Nobody changes completely."

"Maybe you're right," Clark said. "Because you sure as hell didn't turn me down when I came on to you, and some of the stuff we did… Well, it wasn't very respectable, was it?"

"Get out," Lex said, coldly. "You're not welcome here."

"You can't drive me out of the town, Lex," Clark said. "And believe what you want, but I'm not playing a game. I didn't even realize you'd moved in till Julian told me."

"I don't want you around my brother," Lex said. "Stay the hell away from him."

For the first time in the conversation, Clark looked like he was on the verge of losing his temper. He took a huge step forward, slapped his palms down on the glass top of Lex's desk, and leaned forward till he was right in Lex's face.

"Your brother's like a lamb among the wolves, you fucking idiot," Clark hissed. "I saved his life tonight. If I hadn't come along he would have been up there till tomorrow morning, and he would have frozen to death. You'd think you could at least thank me, instead of being a total asshole just because we fucked a couple of times." He leaned back a little, and Lex was able to breathe again. "It can't be the first time he's stumbled across one of your exes."

Lex was silent, and Clark shook his head in disbelief. "You can't protect him forever," Clark said. "He's a bright one. I'd bet he knows a hell of a lot more than you give him credit for. I get that you're worried about him, but you need to lighten up a little."

"I think tonight is a good sign that I'm completely justified," Lex snapped.

"Oh trust me, it won't happen again," Clark said. He stepped back, spread his arms wide. "After all, I'm the crazy runaway kid. Who knows what I'll do?" He dropped his arms back to his sides. "He'll be safe with me. I can promise that."

"But will he be safe from you?" Lex said. "I doubt it." He shook his head. "Where is he, anyway?"

"At a friend's house. He wanted to clean up before I took him home and he had to face the music."

"So you just left him with some-"

Clark held up a hand, silenced him. "Before you can say something insulting about my best friend," Clark said, "you might as well know that she's the daughter of your plant manager. Oh, and she also spent the summer before last interning at the Daily Planet on _your_ scholarship."

"Chloe Sullivan," Lex said, surprised. "I didn't know you knew her."

Clark nodded. "She and Julian are exactly alike, you know."

Lex had only met Chloe once, for the LutherCorp scholarship interview, but he remembered a bright, sharp-witted, vivacious young woman. She didn't seem the type to befriend young psychos, so it gave Lex a little bit of comfort regarding Clark. A little.

"I know where the Sullivan house is," Lex said. "I'll go pick Julian up."

"I'll bring him," Clark said, then laughed a little when Lex shot him a suspicious look. "Oh, relax. I just think he'll be more comfortable if he doesn't have to listen to you lecture on the drive back."

"I don't lecture," Lex lied.

"Then he won't want to listen to an ominous silence on the way back," Clark said easily. "Come on, I'll get him back safe."

"I don't trust you," Lex warned.

"I didn't expect you to," Clark said. "But he's safer with me than with any bodyguard in the world. You of all people should know that."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lex said.

"You're lying," Clark said. "You know what I'm able to do. You researched me well enough."

Lex gave up the pretense. "Don't hurt him."

"I'd die first," Clark said, and he sounded so serious that Lex could almost believe him. Almost.

Clark turned to leave, and Lex almost didn't say it. But just as Clark was about to disappear through the door, Lex called him back.

"Clark!" he said. Clark turned, one eyebrow arched quizzically.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," he said, grudgingly.

"I would have done the same for anyone," Clark said.

"Why?" Lex wasn't sure why he'd asked the question, but it just slipped out.

Clark hesitated, looked like he wasn't going to answer. "I was the scarecrow the freshman year," he said. "My friend didn't find me till dawn. I'd never willingly let anyone else go through that."

He was gone before Lex could reply.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two.

* * *

**

Julian knew he was stubborn. It was a quality he'd actively cultivated, because the only chance he ever had to get his way with Lex was to out-argue him through sheer bloody-minded-ness. It almost always worked.

Case in point. Lex had wanted to pull him out of Smallville High immediately, but Julian had talked him out of it. Then Lex had tried to warn him away from Clark, something about a summer in Metropolis and immoral deeds, but Julian had just ignored him. Clark was probably someone that Lex had slept with at some point; Lex always got so weird about Julian meeting his exes. Not that Julian cared one way or another.

Either way, he'd won. Because here he was, sitting in the Torch office with Chloe and Clark, eating lunch. Lex would probably say something disapproving about hiding from one's enemies, but Clark had grabbed his tray and headed down the hall before Julian could say anything, so he hadn't exactly had a say in it.

Not that the lunch was worth much. Julian doggedly kept eating, though all he really wanted to do was chuck it in the trash. He didn't want to look like the picky rich kid in front of the two people in this town who seemed to actually not hate him.

Clark caught on to what he was doing, though, and tossed him a sandwich. "The school lunch is worse than pig slop," he said with an easy grin when Julian gave him a quizzical look. "And I know from pig slop."

"Yeah, and the our strapping young farmer friend eats like a horse, so his mom always packs a couple extra," Chloe said, her mouth full. "So it's not like you're starving him or something by eating some of his lunch."

"Alright," Julian said. Lex had always taught him when to accede gracefully, when his father had only taught him how to win. He unwrapped it and took a bite. "This is really good," he said, trying to hide his surprise. From the way Clark laughed, he figured that he hadn't succeeded.

"Mom's the best cook I've ever met, here or in Metropolis," Clark said. Julian blushed, cursing his fair skin for about the millionth time in his life, but Clark just winked at him.

Just then there was a knock on the office door, and everyone looked up to see a short black kid in a football jersey standing there, looking severely out of place. Julian flinched- he recognized the boy; he hadn't been one of the ones who'd hung him on the cross, but he'd been there, watching and urging them on.

"What is it, Pete?" Clark said, his voice carefully neutral. Pete gave him an unhappy look, but turned to talk to Chloe.

"There were some cattle mutilations on the Becker farm last night," he said. "You might want to look into it."

"Thanks, Pete," Chloe said, and her voice was a lot friendlier than Clark's, but it was painfully obvious that she didn't feel comfortable with him either. Julian wondered what had happened between them.

"Just thought you should know," Pete said, and with a stilted nod he walked out again. Clark happened to glance over at Julian right then, and his face must have been a lot less blank than he was trying for, because Clark immediately frowned in concern.

"What is it?" he asked.

"He was there," Julian said. "Friday night."

He didn't have to say any more. Clark's face went as blank and still as Julian had been trying for a minute ago, and he said, his voice very quiet, "I'll be back in a minute," before getting up and walking out the door. Julian looked over at Chloe, worried, and found her looking sadly at the door.

"It's okay," she said, when she noticed him looking at her. "Pete… well, he and Clark have been best friends since they were little."

"They didn't seem to friendly a minute ago," Julian pointed out.

"No," she said sadly. "A lot has changed."

He recognized the tone in her voice, knew that there was a lot she wasn't saying. But that was okay. "Will he be okay? Clark looked a little… angry."

"Clark told you that he was the scarecrow his freshman year, right?" Chloe asked. Julian nodded. "Did he tell you that I was the one who got him down?"

Julian shook his head. "No, he just said 'a friend.'"

"I didn't find him till the next morning- you might have noticed that Smallville has a lot of cornfields." Julian nodded ruefully. "Pete had just gotten onto the football team. Afterwards, Pete said that he knew nothing about it, he would have stopped it if he did, but now Clark's wondering if Pete was lying."

"That doesn't sound like something they'd tell a new player," Julian pointed out. "Especially one who's friends with their victim."

"No," Chloe agreed. "And Pete was probably telling the truth. But that's not gonna stop Clark from wondering. Especially now that he knows Pete could do that to someone."

"He hates my family," Julian said flatly. It was hard to swallow, that someone could despise him so much just because his father was a prick, but he'd gotten used to it long ago. "Everyone does."

"That doesn't excuse him," Chloe said. "But not everyone hates the Luthors, Julian."

He shrugged. "Close enough."

"I don't," Chloe pointed out. "My dad works for Lex, and I've met him once. I liked him." She paused, smiled. "Clark doesn't. We matter, right?"

"Of course," Julian said. "Clark said he's met Lex, too. Said he was one of a kind."

Chloe's face twisted around a little, like she was trying not to laugh. She coughed slightly. "Uh, yeah, you could say that."

"They slept together, didn't they?"

This time Chloe's cough wasn't faked. She almost choked on her surprise. "Holy shit, Julian, how did you know that?"

He shook his head, grinning. "I didn't, not for sure, not till now." She made a face at him. "But I guessed. Something about the way they talked about each other." He shrugged. "As Lex's exes go, Clark's far superior."

"So it doesn't bother you?" she asked, her eyes bright with curiosity. "That he slept with your brother?"

"Lex has slept with half the city," Julian said matter-of-factly. "He thinks I don't know, but I do. If it bothered me, I wouldn't be here."

She looked at him with something very much like respect. "I bet everyone underestimates you," she murmured. "You look so naïve, and you're not."

He smiled. "It helps," he admitted. "I wish I was stronger, though. Or scarier. Or _something._"

"You don't need to be anyone but who you are," Chloe said firmly.

"Which doesn't help when I'm attacked by asshole football stars," Julian retorted. He'd heard _that_ inspirational line before. It was sweet, but ultimately useless. "Look, I heard the rumors. Clark visited practically the entire team this weekend, one by one. The whole school's terrified of him. If I looked less like some rich pretty boy, then I'd get in trouble less." He sighed wistfully. "No one would have done that to Lex. Or Clark."

But Chloe shook her head. "You don't want to have gone through what Clark did, to get like he is," she said. "He's changed a lot. He used to be the sweetest kid ever. All open smiles, like a puppy. Made you want to sit in his lap and ruffle his hair."

Julian was getting the impression that Clark and Chloe hadn't always been just friends, but he kept his mouth shut. He could always ask later.

"Now he's got an edge to him," she said. "He's a little scary. You're never quite sure what he'll do."

"I know the feeling," Julian said. It reminded him of Lex, though Lex was more subtle about it. As soon as he'd realized that Clark had probably slept with his brother, it made sense. In their own way, they were two of a kind.

"So you think Pete will be okay?" he said, not quite changing the subject, but maybe redirecting it. Chloe looked a little relieved that they weren't talking about Clark's changes or his love life anymore.

"He'll be fine," she said. "Clark won't hurt him. Yell at him, definitely, probably rip his ego and feelings to shreds, but as far as I'm concerned, he deserves it." Chloe looked a little fierce, but sad, too.

"You were friends with him, weren't you?" Julian said. "Pete, I mean. All three of you were friends?"

"Yeah," she said. "We were." She smiled wistfully. "He used to take the pictures when I was working on an article." That thought seemed to bring her out of her memories and back to him, because she pinned him with a speculative glance. "That reminds me."

"Of what?" he said warily. The gleam in her eyes made him frankly nervous.

"Two questions."

"Shoot," he said.

"How open-minded can you be?" she asked.

Julian thought about some of the things he'd heard, some of the whispers about his father's experiments, some of the intriguing hints he'd heard from Dick Grayson, whenever they visited Gotham, even some of the rumors about Smallville. "Oh, I think it's safe to say that I'm open to most things," he said. "Why?"

"Second question," she said, grinning like crazy now.

"Yeah?"

"How good are you with a camera?"

* * *

It didn't take him long to catch up with Pete. He hadn't gone far, was in fact waiting for him right outside the big double doors that led out to the fields.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing?" Clark snarled, as soon as the door swung shut behind him. "Tired of being the big man on the field, just had to strut your stuff off it, too?"

"It wasn't like that, man," Pete said.

"Then what was it like?"

"It's just… it's different, when you're out with your buddies," Pete said lamely. "Everyone gets all worked up, you do stupid stuff."

"Like crucifying the new kid," Clark said. Pete flinched.

"You got him down, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Clark said. "And you know why I went looking? Because it wasn't that long ago that I was the one up on that cross, Pete."

"You never told me," Pete said defensively.

"No, but Chloe did," Clark said. "She asked you if you'd known anything about it, and you said no, that you would have stopped it if you did."

"Chloe always did like you best," Pete said. Clark slapped the brick next to his head, grinned ferally when Pete jumped.

"Focus, Pete," Clark said. "This doesn't have a damn thing to do about Chloe and the way you never had the balls to ask her out."

"You weren't good enough for her," Pete said. "Never were."

"I'm glad to know you feel that way, Pete," Clark said. "Still not the issue. The issue is you stringing up a kid who never did a damn thing to you, just because you were 'out with your buddies.' Funny, I bet that's what Whitney Fordman thought, before Lana set him straight. Did you know about this when it was me? Did they intimidate you into staying silent, or did you just want their approval so much that they didn't have to threaten you?"

"I _never!"_ Pete said, lunging upright. "I never would have done that to you, man. You have to know that."

"I wish I did," Clark said. "And maybe you didn't. But you sure as hell didn't have any problem doing it to someone you'd never even met. So I gotta wonder, you understand?"

"Fuck, Clark, he's just a Luthor," Pete said. "It's not like he didn't have it coming to him."

"He's sixteen fucking years old, Pete," Clark said. "He's no older than you are. Who are you to blame all the evils in the world on him?"

"The whole family's wrong, Clark," Pete said. "You know what they did to my Dad! And you and Chloe have him practically in your laps, feeding him tea and cookies."

"Nice to know you're blaming Julian for something his dad did when he was _two years old._ You're such an asshole, you know that?"

"Like you're one to talk," Pete snapped back. "I've heard about you, man. Heard about some of the crazy shit you got up to this summer."

So that was it. "And now the truth comes out," Clark said. He planted one hand on either side of Pete's shoulders, leaned in. Height like his was useful when you needed to intimidate someone so much shorter than you. "You're afraid of me, aren't you? Afraid that I'm gonna do something to you. Because I'm the crazy kid who ran away, right? I'm just not right in the head." He smiled at Pete's instinctive flinch, leaned closer. "What is it, Pete? Do you think I'm gonna beat you up? Kill you?" Closer still. "Or do you think I'm going to rape you?"

Pete's flinch this time was full-body, recoiling into the wall, impossible to hide. Clark stepped away, looked at him, at his panic and fear of _Clark_. "So that's it. I've wondered."

And he had. Chloe was his best friend, had been ever since she'd almost gotten killed and he'd had to use his super-speed to save her. He told her the truth that day, and it had pulled them closer.

She'd been the first person to know that he was bi, and she'd never had a problem with it, even when they were dating. Encouraged by his successful coming-out to Chloe, he'd made the mistake of telling Pete, who'd promptly gone to Chloe to use it to try and get her to break up with Clark.

He still remembered some of the things Pete had said to her. He hadn't realized that Clark was right in the next room, hearing every vile word out of his mouth. Chloe had stood up for him, kicked Pete's ass black and blue with her sharp tongue, and then had kicked him out of her house. They'd all made up a week or so later, but Pete had started drifting away since then, and Clark had known it was because of his sexuality.

Abruptly, he felt tired. Way too tired to carry on this conversation. "You know what, Pete?" he said. "It's just too bad you feel that way. You're a fucking small-minded idiot, and I thought you'd be better than this, but I guess not. I guess you're always going to be the loser hanger-on to the football stars who are never going to go anywhere, beating up those weaker than you just to make yourself feel better." Clark shook his head. "Fuck this, anyway. I'm done."

And then he walked away.

* * *

He ran around Smallville a few dozen times, trying to work out some of his frustration, but Smallville just wasn't big enough. He could take a few laps around the state, or even run out to the mountains for some real exercise, but it probably wouldn't help. So he went back to school, knowing that Chloe had a study hall this block and would be working in the Torch.

She was alone, thankfully. Clark wasn't sure he was up to dealing with Julian right now. This was probably the worst day he'd had since Morgan Edge had tried his kidnapping scheme when he'd got home and he'd had to spend two hours in the back of a moving truck with kryptonite taped to his chest. He liked Julian, might be well on his way to having a truly impressive crush on Julian, but in the middle of a misery-fest like this, he really just needed his best friend.

Chloe had obviously been waiting for him. "You look like shit," she told him, concern softening her blunt words. "I take it things didn't go well?"

"He's not sorry because Julian's just a Luthor, right? And they all deserve what they get. Oh yeah, and he's terrified I'm gonna rape him because I'm a scary, crazy gay kid." He flopped into a desk chair and threw his arm over his eyes. "Yeah, you could say things didn't go well."

"Ouch," she said, laying a sympathetic hand over his. He sighed at the familiar feel of her long, cool fingers with the short, neatly kept nails and the ring on her thumb and the pen callous on the first knuckle of her middle finger.

"That's one way of putting it," he said, and lowered his arm so he could look at her. "Let's leave it there, okay? I don't really want to talk about him."

"Alright," she said. Pete's distance had started long before he'd found out that Clark was bi, and it was all because of the pretty blond in front of him. Chloe knew it as well. She probably didn't want to talk about it any more than he did.

"Julian went to class?" he asked. She nodded.

"I've got him working on the cattle mutilation case with me," she said. "He's gonna do the picture thing. Apparently he took a lot of art classes when he moved in with Lex, just because his Dad wasn't around anymore to tell him no, and photography was one of them."

"Have you given him the Wall of the Weird speech yet?" Clark asked.

"Nope. Saving that for later, if this actually turns out to be a mutant case. It could just be a couple of teenagers."

"A couple of teenagers on kryptonite, in this town," Clark said with a sigh. He slid down in his seat till he was barely sitting in it, and rested his head back on the desk. "He'll probably have a blast. He's a lot like you, you know."

"Yeah, I noticed," she said. She flicked him on the back of his ear. "You do have a type."

He slitted one eye open. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Whatever, Clark. Before you get yourself in real trouble, though, you might as well know that he figured out you slept with his brother."

Clark opened both eyes at that. "I should have known," he said. "He's smarter than he lets on." He felt himself smiling at the thought of Julian, the goofy smile he hadn't felt on his lips since before last summer.

"Oh my god," she said. "Clark Kent, you are _so_ gone on him. You idiot." She smacked him on the side of the head.

"I am not," he said. He probably was. Chloe knew him better than anyone.

"You totally are," she said. "Seriously, Clark. Could you have picked someone _worse_ to have a crush on?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation. He could think of about twelve, right off the top of his head.

"Who?" she demanded.

"I could have a crush on Lex, instead."

She was silent for a minute. "I withdraw my objections," she said. "On the basis that you're not as insane as you could be."

"Thank you," he said, and closed his eyes again.

* * *

He thought about it later, though. The thing that Chloe didn't seem to get was that he was _already_ in trouble. Julian… He had something. Some indefinable spark that Clark saw so rarely. It was like a glow that lit him up from the inside every time he smiled, and Clark was absolutely helpless to do anything but smile back.

Things were complicated, though. They'd be complicated just because of who Clark was, even without adding his history with Lex into the equation.

He hadn't told Chloe that Lex knew his secret. Not his full secret, not that of his origins, but at least part of what he could do. He knew that Chloe would have the mother of all freak-outs, so he hadn't mentioned it.

But it bothered him. Lex didn't know him, the real him. Lex only knew the red kryptonite version of him. And Lex knew that he was different, knew that he was strong and fast and thought that he was a total psycho. And Lex was nothing like his dad, but he was still a Luthor, and Clark knew that Lex wouldn't hesitate a moment to use that knowledge against him.

On the other hand, Lex didn't know his weakness, and he was probably afraid of what Clark would do to him if Lex tried to expose him or blackmail him.

The reality of the situation was that Clark didn't know what Lex was going to do. He'd just have to wait and see, and hope things worked out.

_Ball's in your court, Lex,_ he thought. _Hope you know what game you're playing. 'Cause either way, I'm not going to let you win._


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three.

* * *

**

The one constant, the one incontrovertible fact of Lex's life, was that he was a Luthor.

Lionel's parenting style has been unique, and a great many therapists had claimed that it had fucked him up for life. Maybe it had, maybe it hadn't. Lex didn't dwell on it. Instead, he spent his entire life working to make sure that Julian was spared the brunt of it.

It had been surprisingly easy. When Lionel was alive, Lex had made sure to be there, stepping between them, deflecting their father's attention onto himself, and Lionel's attention had always been willing to be deflected. Lex might be his bald freak son, but by God he was the eldest, and he was supposed to inherit Lionel's kingdom. Julian was just an afterthought, a spare.

He'd been protecting Julian from the tender age of ten, when he'd pulled himself out of his self-pity about his freakish, friendless, motherless state to realize that if he didn't do something, then his baby brother was going to end up just as miserable as he was. So maybe he was fucked up, but Julian was a sweet, funny, brilliant, happy teenager- and, more importantly, nothing like their father.

Lex, on the other hand, was, for better or worse, his father's son. This meant a lot of things, but mostly, it meant that he was a twisted, slippery son of a bitch.

Witness the current situation. Lex had a whole host of concerns about his little brother's new best friend, but he wasn't willing to go to Clark, to surrender the advantage and go crawling to the little psycho with his tail between his legs. So. He made Clark come to him.

He waited in the kitchen as Clark unloaded crates of produce, leaning casually in the doorway with sunglasses hiding his eyes so he could pretend he wasn't watching the way Clark's biceps bulged and strained as he lifted the heavy crates. Clark's arched eyebrow told him that the wasn't fooling anyone, but then again, he never had been that subtle when it came to Clark.

"I was wondering how you were going to get me out here," Clark said as he set the crates on the counter.

"Am I so predictable?"

"You? Never." He sounded amused. "But I know how curious you are. And I know you have questions."

Straight to the point. Lex could appreciate that, even if he didn't plan on playing it that way. "What sort of questions could I possible have, Clark?" Lex asked, his voice more bland than sarcastic. Clark threw him a sharp-edged smile and pried off the tightly-fastened lid of the crate with nothing more than an easy twist of his hand.

"Those sort of questions," Clark said, while Lex was still staring in fascinated horror at the crate. "And I know you don't trust me."

"It's nothing personal," Lex said. He was amazed he could keep his voice steady.

"I didn't think it was."

"You haven't exactly given me a lot of reasons to trust you," Lex pointed out.

"Oh, I know." Clark started unloading the vegetables into the plastic bins that went into Lex's refrigeration unit.

"You were a little…" Lex paused delicately, searching for the right word. "Different."

"I was," Clark agreed.

"But not completely different."

At that, Clark paused, his large, competent hands coming to a halt over the crate. "Have you ever," Clark said, not quite looking at Lex, "seen a cop who's been undercover a long time?"

"Yes," Lex said. He had far too much experience with cops in general, actually.

"They're not playing a role anymore, but they still can't come back to the way they were before. Being someone else for so long changed them. Parts of the person they pretended to be remain."

"You're telling me that the person I- that the whole time in Metropolis was a _role?_"

"No," Clark said. He started moving again, finishing the vegetables and then moving on to the fruit in the other crate. Lex watched the edges of the lid splinter like driftwood in Clark's grip. "No, that wasn't a role. But it wasn't me. I was… altered."

"Altered," Lex repeated.

"Yeah," Clark said. He turned, smiled a smile that held no pleasure. "There's a certain substance that can, ah, change my normal behavior patterns."

"Drugs," Lex said. This, he was familiar with.

"No." Okay, or not. "They don't affect me. This was something different."

"Different how?"

"Different like me."

"And how are you different, exactly?"

Clark looked at him, his hands empty. Lex realized that sometime in the last minute, he'd managed to put away an entire crate of fruit.

"You know already," Clark told him. It wasn't a question.

"You're very strong, and very fast. And unbreakable."

"Yes, I am," Clark said. "You know what I can do. The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing," Lex said. It was the truth, for a number of reasons. "I just wanted to know." Which was less true, since Lex wanted a lot of things, but still relatively close to the truth.

Clark gave him an unreadable look, but what he would have said next, Lex was destined not to know, because they were interrupted by Julian bouncing into the kitchen.

"Clark!" he said, sounding way too happy for Lex's peace of mind. "What are you doing here?"

"Delivery," Clark said, gesturing broadly to the empty crates. "Chloe through with you?"

"Yeah," Julian said. "God, she's exhausting. Fun, but exhausting."

Lex had thought the very same thing when he'd met the estimable Miss Sullivan. "I'm sure your shutter finger is worn out," Clark said dryly. "Find anything interesting?"

"Yeah," Julian said. "After I didn't call her crazy when she said it wasn't an animal, she showed me the Wall."

"Ah, cattle mutilations as an initiation rite," Clark said. "Cool."

"Cattle mutilations?" Lex asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't remember that being mentioned."

"Well, it's Smallville," Julian said, and his and Clark's shrugs were mirror images of each other.

Lex frowned to himself. He'd tried to warn Julian about Clark, but as usual, Julian hadn't listened to him. Normally he was proud that Julian was so strong-willed (Lex never had been able to stand up to Lionel, though he liked to think he was slightly less terrifying that their father) but this time he was… concerned. Clark's explanation for his behavior was bizarre at best, but it made no less sense than anything else about him, and as Julian had said, this was Smallville. Lex knew that more illogical things happened every week. That didn't mean that Lex trusted Clark any more than he had before, and he was more than little uncomfortable at the thought of him being friends with Lex's little brother.

"Speaking of Smallville," Clark said, "you want to maybe see a little more of it? No cornfields, I promise."

"No cornfields? It's gonna be a short tour," Julian teased.

"Hey, Smallville's not that bad. We've got a lot of… barns. Trees. Even a lake!"

"But there's more corn," Julian grinned. Lex was starting to get a little peeved that they had apparently forgotten he was even in the room.

"Fine, it'll be a short tour. Can get it done in the afternoon and hit the theatre afterwards. Say, Friday? Since I assme you're not going to the football game."

"That's a safe assumption," Julian said with a shudder.

"So, Friday?" Clark pressed, and Julian responded with a slow, sunny grin.

"It's a date," he said, standing too close, smiling up at Clark- and Clark was smiling back.

Oh, no.

"It's a date," Clark agreed, then took a step away and clapped Julian on the back in a typically manly heterosexual sort of way. But Lex had _seen_ them. They'd just made a date right there in his kitchen, right there _in front of him._ Julian, maybe, could possibly be deluded enough to think that Lex hadn't noticed, but Clark had to know that Lex knew exactly what was going on.

And yet, Clark's gaze hadn't strayed to him once, laughing at getting one over him. Clark seemed to have eyes only for Julian, who didn't seem to mind at all.

Lex couldn't believe that _his little brother_ had a date with his possibly-psycho ex-fuckbuddy. Even his life wasn't this fucking bizarre.

"Well," Clark said, when the silence was in danger of stretching on too long. "I'd probably better get going."

"Yes," Lex said, through teeth that were ever-so-slightly clenched. "You should."

They both ignored him. Surprise. "I'll see you at lunch tomorrow," Julian said, still smiling at Clark.

"Count on it," Clark said, still smiling back, and then he turned around and walked out the back door without even once glancing over at Lex.

Julian watched the door for a moment, then turned to Lex. An amused smirk crossed his features. "You look like you've been run over by a truck."

"Well, I wasn't expecting you two to be projecting hormones across my kitchen, you know."

"Then you haven't been paying attention," Julian informed him.

"You've only known him for four days!"

"And I've spent all of the them hanging out with him," Julian said. "He's sweet; he's funny; he's got a brain in his pretty head. And as I'm sure you've noticed, he's hot. What's not to like?"

"He doesn't seem like your type," Lex said neutrally. He wasn't going to touch that last bit with a ten-foot pole, thanks.

"Much like you, I don't have a type."

Ouch. Why was it that he always underestimated Julian?

Time for the last-ditch defenses. "Julian, he's not quite the charmer he seems. He can be… dangerous. I've seen it."

Julian regarded him with an impenetrable Luthor stare for a long moment. And then he started laughing. "I love you, brother of mine," he said, patting Lex on the shoulder. "But sometimes? You're a moron."

Still chuckling, Julian left the kitchen. Lex stared after him, and then slumped back against the kitchen counter.

"Oh, _that_ went well…"

* * *

"Clark, you moron"

"I resemble that remark," Clark said. He knew he had an extremely dork grin on his face, but he just couldn't seem to care.

"Clark. You _moron._"

"You know, I don't have to sit here and take this abuse," he said mildly. Chloe glared at him.

"Oh, you so do. What were you thinking? Or were you even thinking at all?"

"That he's funny, smart, and cute? I mean, I thought those were good reasons…"

"Not that he's not a cutie, 'cause he is and we both know it, but you're still crazy. Or had you forgotten the whole thing you had going with his big brother?"

"Kinda hard to forget, Chlo," Clark said. "And I don't have a thing going with Lex. There's no thing at all."

"Which is a blatant lie," Chloe said bluntly. "I know you, Clark. You're playing some game with Lex freaking Luthor, and Julian's getting caught in the crossfire."

Clark straightened fast out of his slouch. "Now that remark I do resent," he said. "Even if I was playing a game with Lex, which I'm not, I would never use Julian like that and you know it."

She didn't respond with the fervent agreement that he would have liked, but instead just looked at him for a long moment. "I've known you a long time," she said finally. "And maybe once I'd have agreed with you. But now? Now I'm not so sure."

"I didn't know you felt that way," he said slowly. "You never said."

"Well, we're not the best at talking about our feelings," she pointed out.

"We talk about our feelings all the time!"

"Little stuff, yeah. Stuff like this? Yeah, we're not so good at it."

"Chloe, you know I'd never do anything to hurt you," he said. And it was the truth. Even at the depths of his madness the summer before, he hadn't been able to get her out of his life. He hadn't even tried very hard. She was just… Chloe.

"I know that," she said. "I don't think you're dangerous, or crazy. But I do know that you're different. And I don't think you'd really hurt me or anyone else, but I don't think it would bother you too much if you trampled over someone's feelings a little bit to score a point."

He thought about that one for a minute. "You're not entirely wrong," he said, because this was Chloe and he couldn't ever lie to her. "Maybe with someone else. But not with him. Just…" He shrugged. "He's Julian."

"Oh my god, Clark, you're such an idiot," he said, but the fondness was back in her voice. "You really fell for him."

"I seem to remember you saying that a couple days ago."

"Yeah, but I didn't think it was true!" she said. "You have a crush on him. You, Clark Kent, have an honest-to-God crush on him."

"Yeah," he said, smiling a little to himself. "I do." It felt good.

"Well, hell," she said, looking perplexed. She flopped back in her chair and threw an arm across her eyes. He laughed at her drama, and she lowered her arm just enough to glare at him.

"You know, I want to issue a bunch of dire warnings, tell you it's doomed, that it's not going to end well," she informed him.

"But?" he asked.

"But you two are just too damned cute," she said, and laughed when he threw a pencil at her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four

* * *

**

He was still thinking about their conversation when Friday rolled around. Was it possible that he really was using Julian as a pawn in whatever game he had going on with Lex?

No. Whatever cat-and-mouse fun he was having with Lex, it didn't have anything at all to do with Julian. With Lex, it was all about the game, all about winning, or at least getting one up on his opponent. With Julian… Well, with Julian, it was something sweeter. Something like he'd had with Chloe, back at the beginning when the sky had seemed a little brighter when she was next to him.

And if that wasn't a scary thought, he didn't know what was. Because with Chloe, they'd eventually mellowed out into just-friends territory, and it was still the most important relationship in his life. But Julian? Somehow, he didn't see himself being able to be "just friends" with Julian.

Which all led to this. Standing here in front of his closet, trying to figure out which shirt to wear.

This was _insane._ He'd never worried about his clothes. Before this summer, he'd never really given them a second thought, and during the summer, he'd instinctively known what to wear to show his body to its best advantage. That knowledge didn't go away just because he was a little less crazy, so why the hell was he so indecisive now? He felt like a thirteen-year-old girl.

_For God's sake, Kent, get a grip on yourself._ His mental voice sounded a lot like Chloe, and with good reason. He was pretty sure that if she was here, she'd be laughing her ass off at him. It wouldn't be the first time.

He felt a momentary flash of guilt, thinking about Chloe. He probably should have told her about Lex. She'd left the perfect opening, and he hadn't been able to make himself tell her that Lex knew what he could do. Well, some of what he could do, if not exactly what he was. Still, it was enough, and it was a big enough deal that Chloe would be in hysterics if she knew, and with good reason. He should have told her. He never kept anything a secret from her anymore. And yet…

Maybe it came back to what she'd said, about him trampling over people just to score a point. Because he knew that if he told her that Lex knew at least part of his secret, she'd freak out and do something stupid, like possibly go up to the castle and confront Lex herself. And that just wouldn't do.

He didn't want her to confront Lex on his behalf. He didn't want her to protect him. He wanted to play his game of wits with the grand master champion, and he wanted to win. He was _determined_ to win, and he realized, with a little jolt of surprise, that while he wouldn't ever deliberately hurt Chloe, the only person's feelings that he really wanted to be careful of in his little war was Julian's.

Full circle. Julian, closet, shirt, nervous. _Date._

Finally, he gave up and just grabbed a t-shirt. It was green and thin and managed to both show off his muscles and highlight his eyes, so it was probably good enough. He was wearing black jeans and boots, and with his black canvass jacket he probably stood out like a sore thumb in Smallville, land of the flannel, but he was used to it, and at least it would give him something in common with Julian. Julian probably understood even better than he did what it felt like to be a spectacle.

He grabbed the jacket off his bed and headed down the steps. His parents were in the kitchen, and he almost made it out the door unnoticed when his mother poked her head out through the door.

"Clark?"

Cursing his luck, he turned and faced her. "Hi, mom."

"Clark, honey, are you going out?"

She was eyeing his outfit with something like fear, and Clark was briefly tempted to wave his ring-free hands at her, but resisted the urge. It would only hurt her feelings. "Yeah, mom. Just to the Talon." He figured that telling her he was going on a date with the Luthor kid wouldn't go too over well.

She visibly relaxed. "Oh, I'm glad for you, honey. I hope you have a good time."

"Thanks, mom," he said, and made tracks for the door before his Dad could get involved.

* * *

The Talon was pretty empty, since pretty much everyone was at the game. There were a few freshman misfits scattered around the tables, though, and Lana was behind the counter. She waved to him when he came in, and he waved back before wandering over.

The problem with Lana was that she was prone to giving him these _looks,_ these soulful orphan-eyes that she'd perfected the hard way at age three, whenever he did something that reminded her that he wasn't the Clark she'd known. But she was still a good friend, and pretty fun once you got her going, and Julian wasn't here yet, so Clark had some time to kill.

"Hey, Lana," he said, leaning carefully against the glass counter. "Slow night?"

"Pretty much the usual," she said, dimpling prettily up at him. "What about you? Shouldn't you be at the game?"

Not if he could help it. "Nah. I'm meeting someone."

"Here?" she asked.

No, in Timbuktu. Christ. "Yeah, here," he said. "You see me standing anywhere else?"

She ignored that, just like he'd known she would. She always had been good at pretending a person's rough edges didn't exist, and sarcasm went completely over her head. It was one of the reasons why she and Chloe hadn't managed to kill each other yet.

"Is it a date?" Her voice held the kind of flirtation that didn't really mean anything. Christ, but it used to wind him up back in the day.

"Yeah," he said, unable to stop the smile that spread across his face. Julian. "Yeah, it's a date."

"Who's the lucky girl?"

Clark wasn't quite sure whether to laugh or to cry. Only Lana. He decided on resigned amusement. "Guy, actually," he said, and had the pleasure of watching with interest as she struggled not to let her shock show.

"Ah, that's… great, Clark," she said, her face a little stiff. He had to hand it to her, she got it together quick. Then again, a childhood like hers and she'd have to. "Who's the lucky guy, then?"

He flashed a charming grin to delay her and give him time to decide whether or not to answer her. On one hand, she was already pretty shocked at him having a date with a guy, and she didn't have any more love for the Luthor name than the rest of this town. But on the other hand, she was a good friend, and surprisingly open-minded considering the fact that she'd grown up in this little pocket of Kansas past, with all the accompanying attitudes. She might be shocked that he was openly dating guys, but she'd bounce back pretty fast, and it wasn't like she wasn't going to recognize Julian anyway.

Before he could tell her, though, the bell on the door jingled. Clark looked up to see Julian saunter in, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and an old, beat-up leather jacket that was about a size and a half too big. One of Lex's, Clark judged, delighted by his appearance. Probably from big brother's bad old days.

"Hey," he called, drawing Julian's attention to him. The smile that he got in response looked like a mirror of the sappy grin Clark could feel on his own face.

"Heya, Clark," Julian said, loping over to stand next to him. "Sorry I'm late."

Behind the counter, Lana made a muffled noise of shock. "You're not late, I was early," Clark said, leaning a little into his personal space, ridiculously happy when Julian leaned a little right back. "Big brother give you any trouble?"

"Couple lectures," Julian said with a grin. "He's- well, you know how he gets."

"Seen it a couple times, yeah," Clark said. He looked up to see Lana staring at him, one eyebrow raised. "Sorry, Lana. Julian, this is Lana Lang. Lana, meet Julian."

"Pleasure," Julian said, aiming his sunny smile her way, though Clark could see that it had dimmed half a notch, and there was a cautiously calculating glint in his eye. Knew how to handle people, this one did, Clark thought, and he hadn't gotten a chance to get Lana's measure quite yet.

"It's nice to meet you," she agreed. "Clark was just telling me about you."

Now Julian was the one arching an eyebrow at Clark, silently questioning. "Nothing bad, I promise!" Clark said, half-laughing, his hands raised in defense. "I haven't been here that long, and besides." He bumped Julian with his shoulder. "I don't know anything bad."

"Oh, give me time," Julian said, rolling his eyes. "Now, don't you owe me a tour or something?"

"One tour of Smallville, coming right up." He straightened away from the counter, nodded at Lana. "Hope business picks up a little later."

"It always does, after the game," she said. "You two have a good time." She'd definitely regained her footing. Enough to give him a little smirk when she said it, just like she used to tease him when he was about to take Chloe somewhere special, back in the day.

"Oh, we will," he said, and slung his arm over Julian's shoulder before heading out. Not that there was anyone who mattered around to see the show, but Clark liked to make his intentions clear. Anyone who had a problem with it could- well, they probably weren't going to take it up with him, and they weren't going to take it out on Julian, either, after his "discussion" with the football team.

"It was nice meeting you," Julian called out over his shoulder to Lana. He let Clark lead him outside, not making any move to shrug Clark away.

Clark pulled him a little closer, enjoying the heat coming off his body, even though the layers of fabric that separated them, and the smell of him, spicy-sweet skin and apple-scented shampoo. He wanted to get up close and personal with the source of that scent, bury his face in that silky long hair, feel that slender body moving against his own.

Later. Clark could be very patient, when he needed to be, though he didn't think he would. All the signals were there, and Julian might look like a delicate hothouse flower, but Clark could tell- he was the kind of person who went after what he wanted.

He was Lex's brother, after all.

"So," Julian said, once they were outside and feeling the crisp October air. "Where to?"

"Um," Clark said. And then nothing else.

Laughing, Julian nudged him sharply in the side. "Oh, come on. You're the one who planned this!"

"Not very well," Clark admitted, faking a shy grin. "I sort of didn't think past getting you alone, you know?"

"Like that was a big challenge," Julian jibed. "Come on. I don't care if it was a ploy, I was promised a Smallville tour and now I'm gonna get it."

Clark put on an earnest expression. "Well, I can think of this one place," he said slowly, as if hesitant. "I mean, I'm not sure that it'll appeal to a big-city kinda guy like you, but-"

"I'm pretty sure I'll like… the country," Julian said, making a big production out of his hesitation and drawing out "like" in the sleaziest manner possible. They both looked at each other and lost it, leaning drunkenly against each other and laughing like idiots in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Okay," Clark said, once he'd gotten his laughter under control. "I do have a cool spot I'd like to show you, if you want. Or we can skip it and just go to the movie." He was pretty sure which one Julian would choose, but not one hundred percent, and he had to offer the out, just in case he was reading things wrong.

"Nah," Julian said, waving his hand dismissively. "Screw the movies, anyway. I'd like to see this cool spot of yours."

Score. He had gotten it right. Clark one, universe zero. "Alright then," he said, and grabbed Julian's wrist, letting himself enjoy the feel of the slender bone cradled against his much larger palm. "Let's go check it out."

"It'll be my pleasure," Julian said, and let Clark lead him to his truck.

* * *

"So what's it like, anyway?" Julian asked a little while later, walking next to Clark down a gravel road with nothing but moonlight to guide the way. Luckily, the moon was full, since Julian didn't have Clark's superior night-vision to fall back on.

"What's what like?" Clark asked.

"Growing up here, in Smallville. I mean, I've had some pretty great experiences and some pretty shitty ones, but it can't be the norm around here."

"Actually no, that sums it up pretty well- some great stuff, some not so great. Smallville had more than its fair share of tragedies, and more than its fare share of weirdness. I'm sure Chloe's told you some of it."

"She gave me a rundown," Julian said, his voice so dry that Clark knew Chloe had talked herself hoarse. She did that, sometimes, when she found a willing audience. Clark thought it was kinda cute, though he'd long ago learned to tune her out and still pick up the actual pertinent information. Not everyone would have developed those particular filters.

"Well, it gets weirder, I'm sure. It always gets weirder, here in Smallville. I've been here all my life, and I still get surprised by some of the stuff that shows up here."

"Okay, so Smallville should be renamed Weirdville, check," Julian said. "But what's it like to live here, when you're not the town freak?"

Clark paused. "I wouldn't really know, anymore," he said finally. He cast a rueful look at Julian. "Which I'm sure _you_ know. You had to have heard the gossip."

"Chloe said something about you changing, though she didn't say why," Julian said, not mentioning anything that anyone else had said. His open sideways glance held nothing but curiosity, which is why Clark answered the way he did.

"I used to go out of my way to be Mr. Joe Normal, you know? I was the perfect small-town farm boy- polite, hardworking, in love with the girl next door."

"Lana," Julian guessed. Well, he'd already known that Julian was observant, and just as canny as his brother, in his own way.

"Lana," Clark confirmed. "For a while, anyway. Eventually I got hit with a clue-by-four, as Chloe likes to say, and I saw the light where my best friend was concerned. Chloe and I were together for a while, and it was damn good. I didn't have to worry about being normal, or not-normal, or anything, not when I was with her. She's just that kind of person."

"Admittedly, I don't know her that well," Julian said, "but from everything I've seen? She's amazing."

"Yeah," Clark said. "She is."

"So what happened?" Julian asked. "I mean, it's obvious you two aren't together anymore. Did you fight, was there someone else, or what?"

"Nothing so dramatic," Clark said with a smile. "We just… drifted. We're better off as friends, and I, for one, am just grateful that we figured it out before it could get that dramatic. I'd be pretty miserable without her."

"Which brings us right back to Chloe talking about you changing," Julian said. "Or is this an off-limits subject?"

Of course it was. His summer in Metropolis wasn't something that Clark ever wanted to talk about, with anyone. But he found himself opening his mouth and telling the truth anyway. "My mom was pregnant," he said. "She got into an accident and lost the baby. I don't know if she blamed me or not, but Dad made it pretty clear that he did, and I sure as hell blamed myself. So I got the hell out of Dodge."

Clark paused, waiting for Julian to say, "It wasn't your fault." Or even to ask why Clark blamed himself. But Julian just said nothing, just nodded encouragingly and waited for Clark to continue.

So he did. "I did… A lot of things. Some pretty messed-up stuff. Partied all night, slept all day, got a little crime in around all that fun." He shot a sideways glance in Julian's direction, but he wasn't recoiling. He'd probably figured out some of this already, but knowing was a lot different than just assuming. "You can probably guess that that's when I met your brother."

"Oh, he doesn't think too well of you, no," Julian said. "He's warned me off you at least a hundred times already."

Clark's heart beat faster in his chest from the only kind of fear that actually hit his adrenaline anymore. Then again, this was the only kind of problem that he couldn't control, no matter how much strength and speed he threw at it.

"Oh?" he asked, managing to sound mostly casual. "What sort of warnings, if you don't mind me asking?"

Julian shot him a look that said he wasn't fooling anyone. "That you're bad news. That you're not as nice and wholesome as you seem." He paused. "That you're dangerous."

Clark swallowed hard. "And?"

"And I told him I never thought you were wholesome," Julian said, his smile glinting in the moonlight. His words were casual, but Clark got the message anyway. Julian wasn't heeding Lex's warnings, but he wasn't walking into this blind, either.

Clark liked that about him.

They didn't really say anything more for the next few minutes, just walking in silence until they got to the turn-off Clark was looking for. "This way," he said, grabbing Julian's elbow to pull him after Clark. "It's just a little ways down here."

"I can't see a damn thing," Julian complained good-naturedly, letting Clark guide him down the darkened path. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Hold your horses, you'll see in just a minute," Clark said, laughing a little, and then suddenly the path opened up into a moonlit clearing and he grinned down at Julian, letting go of his arms. "Voila."

Julian stared around the crumbled stones with an expression of unabashed wonder on his face. "What is this place?" he asked. "It's amazing."

"There used to be a cottage here, back when Smallville was still a one-horse town, instead of two," Clark said. "As you can see, it was either torn down or fell down long ago. Almost everyone's forgotten about it."

"So how did you find it?" Julian asked, his eyes bright with curiosity and something else that Clark wasn't sure he could put a name to. It was bad enough that he'd brought Julian here at all. The last person he'd shown this place to had been Chloe, and even Clark wasn't too dense not to see the parallels there. Not that he hadn't seen them already, but still.

"I explore," Clark said, which was the truth but not nearly close to all of it. "I still come here sometimes, if I need to think. It's got that Secret Garden feel to it, you know?"

"Yeah, I do," Julian said. He wandered over to the one remaining section of brick foundation, which came up to about his chest. "Hey, gimme a boost, would you?" he asked, and clambered up so agilely when Clark complied that Clark had no doubt in his mind that he'd asked for help just so that Clark could put his hands on him, a plan of which Clark approved wholeheartedly.

Julian tipped his head back to stare at the expanse of stars above his head. "I love Smallville," he confided to Clark. "Even though it's weird and has mutants and most of the school hates me. It's still better than the city." He smiled up at the night sky again. "You can never see the stars in the city, for one."

Clark stared at him. In that one moment, Julian looked so damn beautiful that he didn't even seem real. It was like if Clark touched him, he'd just laugh and disappear in a puff of fairy dust, leaving behind nothing but his slowly fading footprints in the dew.

Julian looked back down at him and frowned at whatever he saw on Clark's face. "Hey, what's the matter?" he asked. "You look… weird. Far-away."

"I was just thinking the same thing about you," Clark said, his mouth dry. He reached out and cupped Julian's cheek in his hand, the skin cool against the blood-warm skin of his palm. "Julian…"

Julian made a little noise in the back of his throat and leaned into Clark's touch, and that was it, that was the end of Clark's patience. He'd meant to draw this out, to make it perfectly romantic because Julian seemed like the sort of person to appreciate the little things, but Julian was smiling at him while Clark touched him, and there was really no resisting that. He'd managed a secluded location, mysterious ruins, and moonlight: that was about as romantic as he was going to be able to get.

He surged forward and crowded right up against Julian, bracketing him with his larger body. He brought his other hand up until he had Julian's face framed in his palms, and when he read nothing but eagerness in the tilt of Julian's smile, he leaned up and brought Julian's mouth down to his.

It was amazing, stunning, earth-shattering, like lighting and fireworks going off all at once. It was a perfect first kiss by anyone's standards, chaste and intimate to start, then slowly sliding into deep, hot, and wet, with Julian's tongue doing something positively obscene to the roof of Clark's mouth, and finally easing back into slow, lingering touches and the press of lips on lips. Finally they were just barely kissing, Clark's forehead resting against Julian's as their breath mingled in the scant distance between their mouths.

"Wow," Julian whispered, causing them both to laugh. Clark realized that his hands had slid under Julian's jacket and were resting on his hips, his thumbs just brushing against the bare skin on the point of Julian's hips, where his t-shirt had slid up to expose them. He had no memory of putting them there.

"Wow, indeed," Clark whispered back. He slid his right hand back, all the way under Julian's t-shirt until it his palm was flat on the small of Julian's back, pressing lightly against the sensitive cluster of nerves there. Julian's breath caught in the back of his throat, and his eyes glinted hotly at Clark.

"This place is amazing," he said in a more normal voice. "But it's not really the best place for this sort of thing."

"I know," Clark said, slightly rueful. "All I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Oh, it definitely was," Julian said. He hopped down off the wall, which left him pressed against Clark since Clark didn't bother to move back and give him some room. Clark was pretty happy about this state of affairs, and judging by the way Julian's breath caught in the back of his throat and he pressed closer to Clark, he was too. "It's just a bit too cold outside to be removing any clothing."

"I'll keep that in mind for next time," Clark said intently, and Julian's little laugh died as he stared at Clark's mouth with blatant hunger.

"See that you do," he said, and between one second and the next they were kissing again, this time with Clark the one to bend his head, Julian's smaller body pressed as tightly against his as it could go.

_I could fall in love with him,_ Clark thought to himself, and the most surprising thing about it was that it wasn't a surprise at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part Five**

* * *

In Lex's world, Saturdays were business days just like any other, but Sundays were definitely days of rest. On Sundays he could sleep in as late as he wanted, a habit developed from the days before Smallville, when he was still in the big city and trying to balance big business and raising his younger brother with having something vaguely akin to a social life. He'd never really _dated,_ per se, except for the occasional supermodel or rich daddy's girl like Victoria to keep the press happy, but Saturday nights he'd hit the clubs, one after another till he found whatever it was he was looking for that night. He always took the girl, or guy, back to his old college apartment instead of the penthouse, so he could wait until they fell asleep before slipping out of bed and back to his home, and wouldn't have to worry about awkward morning-afters or Julian. The only person he'd ever brought back to the penthouse was Kal, and even that had been during the week Julian was visiting friends in Gotham. If he'd had any idea how complicated that particular situation was going to get, he would have ignored the pretty boy in leather on the dance floor that night, and saved himself a whole hell of a lot of aggravation.

This particular Sunday, he was up at a normal hour, prompting odd looks from his cook, who was used to cooking brunch, not breakfast. He had _reasons_ for being up at this hour.

Julian had taken off last night without so much as a by-your-leave, just waved at Lex as he went speeding through his office on the way to the door. And despite the fact that Lex had slept with one ear open, waiting for the telltale sounds of little Luthor feet on the floorboards, the castle had been dead quiet all night. A quick check of Julian's bedroom had confirmed it- the little brat hadn't come home at all last night.

So here he was, waiting for his errant brother to get back, so he could perhaps explain to him the fact that Julian was not Lex, and Lex was not his father, and he wasn't going to be one of those dreary controlling types but he wasn't going to let his only brother run wild in a town that had already tried to kill him, either. Not to mention spending his nights with possibly-ex psychotic criminals that had a history with Lex. And if Julian didn't like it, he could always learn to live with it in Excelsior, six hundred miles away. (Or, well, no. Even Lex wasn't that cruel. Julian didn't have Lex's particular glaring deformity, but even Smallville High had to be better than that pit of backstabbing vipers.)

He was so busy preparing his speech for Julian that it took him completely off-guard when his office door opened and Clark strolled in.

"Morning," Clark said, seemingly oblivious of that fact that a) he was the wrong person and b) Lex didn't actually want him there. He didn't go any further than the doorway, for which Lex was grateful, but he was less happy about the picture Clark made, perfectly posed in a relaxed lounge against the doorframe.

On the other hand, if Clark was here, then Julian hadn't been with him all night. And while that meant that Julian had been wandering around a town that hated him without an admittedly capable bodyguard, it also meant that he hadn't been with Clark all night, which had to be an improvement. This made him send a smile that was bordering on actually being friendly at Clark when he said, "Julian's not here."

"Oh, I know," Clark said casually, and sent Lex's mood plummeting again. If he already knew… Damn it, Julian. Hadn't he taught his brother even a smidgeon of common sense?

_You fucked him_, some inner voice taunted. _You fucked him more than once. You invited him into your home, into the bed that you'd never shared with anyone, not even during that schoolboy phase when Victoria was the most amazing thing you'd seen._

It was different, he tried to tell himself. He knew how to handle himself around people like Clark, and Julian didn't.

Of course, it was bullshit. First, because Julian could handle himself better than almost anyone his age- better than Lex had, back when he was sixteen. And second, because there had never been anyone else like Clark. If there had, maybe Lex would have known how to say no to him.

"Oh, really." He made it a challenge the way only a true Luthor could- the kind of challenge that wasn't really a challenge at all, because clearly, he was in charge here and the other person better damn well answer the right way if they knew what was good for them.

Unfortunately for him, Clark, in any incarnation, had always been immune to his Luthor games. It came to him, briefly, that his father would have hated Clark with a passion.

"He's at Chloe's," Clark said, apparently oblivious to Lex's inner turmoil. His easy grin didn't really help, either.

"Getting replaced by your feisty reporter friend?" Lex made himself ask. "Tsk tsk, Mr. Kent. I would have thought you'd turn a boy's head better than that."

Clark's lazy smile grew wider. "Nah. Chloe likes a man she can look up to."

Lex arched his eyebrow at Clark's six-foot-plus frame. "Good thing you're not so picky."

"Yeah, well." Clark shrugged.

"So what is Julian doing at the charming Miss Sullivan's home this early in the morning, if not romance?"

Clark snorted. "Clearly, you don't know Chloe all that well," he said. "He crashed on her couch. She had him out all night looking at dog tracks in cow pastures. Apparently her latest theory is meteor-werewolf."

"That's fascinating," Lex said, very dry, but inwardly he was relieved. At least Julian hadn't spent it with Clark. He hadn't gone that far, not yet. It was something.

And then, of course, the other shoe dropped and the obvious question occurred to him. "So if you looking for Julian, then what are you doing here, and at such an early hour, I might add?"

Clark shrugged, the motion lifting his shoulders and making him seem momentarily larger, filling even Lex's ostentatiously oversized doorway. "Figured you'd be up," he said. "I thought I might see if you'd be up for a game of pool. I've been getting rusty, out here and away from the city."

Lex frowned. "But I usually sleep in on Sundays."

"I know," Clark said, and his gaze was heavy with the weight of shared knowledge. That look burned Lex, stole his breath and his words; they stayed like that for a long moment, suspended in time until Clark blinked and glanced away, breaking the connection and allowing Lex to breathe again.

"So, what'll it be?" Clark said. "You game, or what?"

Lex had a feeling that there was more to that question than it appeared, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what, since he knew Clark couldn't be asking what he thought he was asking. Was this what it was like, for anyone else to talk to him?

Whatever the question, there were a million reasons why he should say no. Clark was dangerous, no matter how much he said he'd changed, and he was involved with Lex's little brother, who he'd sworn to himself that he'd protect. Lex didn't even like him, and he certainly didn't trust him. He should just throw Clark out now, and save himself a lot of future hassle.

"Yes," he said, and had to stop himself from looking around to see who'd said that. "Yes, I'm game."

He was forcibly reminded of his earlier thought, about how he'd never seemed to be able to say no to this boy, when Clark flashed him a grin that was delighted and undeniably triumphant. Lex knew for certain, now, that he'd just signed himself up for more than a game of pool, but the question was, what?

"Good," Clark said. "I've been looking forward to playing against you again."

Against, Lex thought. Playing _against_ him instead of with him. It was a telling difference, but it still didn't tell him all he needed to know about Clark's intentions.

Or maybe it did, he thought, watching as Clark straightened out of his slouch in the doorway and wandered over to the pool table to select his cue. Maybe he had all the clues he needed, and he just wasn't good enough to put all the pieces together.

It was a frightening thought. He'd thought earlier that his father would have hated Clark. What he hadn't realized was that it would have been because Clark was far too much like him, in all the ways that were dangerous. Any dumb fuck on the street could be cruel, and the difference between malice and honest intentions was thin at best on good days, but nobody could twist words and complicate like a Luthor, unless, of course, you were Clark Kent.

"I'm getting' old over here," Clark grumbled, leaning a little on the pool cue he'd picked out. Lex shook off his thoughts, which were distracting at best and dangerous at the worst, and went over to start the game.

The played through the first game in an oddly companionable silence. Even before, when it had been Kal on the other side of the table instead of Clark, he'd still been the best opponent Lex had ever had, and though he could have easily changed the table too quickly for Lex's eye to follow, he'd never once suspected that Clark would. He didn't trust the boy with truth, justice or his younger brother, but even conscienceless Kal had had his own kind of honor, and cheating was beneath him. He'd always been of the mind that if Lex could beat him at this, then he deserved to lose. It was oddly refreshing, and the one thing they'd enjoyed doing together, outside of bed, anyway.

Clark won the first round, but for the second Lex forced himself to concentrate, to ignore the perfection inherent in Clark's body, stretched out as he bent to achieve that perfect shot. It took a bit of doing, but after a minute he managed it, and was in the zone he always went to, for games like this, which were more art than sport.

Of course, that's when Clark started talking.

"You don't know me, you know."

Lex let out a huff of irritation and backed away from the shot he'd been about to take. "You realize it's very bad manners to distract your opponent during a game."

"I'm serious," Clark insisted, and yes, he did look serious. Earnest, as well, which would have sat so very oddly on Kal's sharper-edged face but seemed perfectly at home on Clark. "You think you know me, but you really don't."

"Clearly not, as you've turned into a six-foot-three fortune cookie," Lex retorted. "Can we get back to the game, please?"

"You keep treating me like I'm the same person you knew back in Metropolis, and I'm not."

Lex gave up on the game for a moment and focused all of his attention back on Clark, as it was perhaps inevitable that it would land. "Is that really so surprising?" he asked, more seriously than he'd meant. "Would you be any different, in my shoes?"

"Probably not," Clark admitted, "but all I want is for you to think about it, okay? Because I know you don't believe me, but I really have changed, and I just want you to think about it."

"I think I can manage that," Lex said, and deliberately kept his tone dry because he didn't want to be having this conversation. He didn't want to be having it right now especially, but he didn't really want to be having it at all, not if he had the choice. "Can we go back to the game now?"

But Clark had relaxed, and the intense young man of seconds ago vanished back into the lazy grin. For a moment, Lex had seen Clark as he'd probably been before whatever substance he claimed altered him so dramatically, young and earnest and open. But he was gone again, and in his place was this halfling creature, neither fully Kal, nor as young and untarnished as he'd once been.

Lex took his shot and missed, handing the table back to Clark without too much regret. It gave him time to think about what Clark had said. He'd known, logically, that Clark wasn't Kal, because a man blind, deaf, and dumb would have been able to know that, and Lex was none of those things. But now it was occurring to him that he hadn't really thought about what that would mean, exactly. If Clark truly wasn't Kal, then who, exactly, was he?

The answer was, Lex didn't know. He rather suspected that was exactly what Clark had been trying to tell him by prompting to think it over. He'd known Kal, maybe not everything about him, but enough to know who he was, at the essence. Kal had been without a conscience, without restraints, a creature who was absolutely beautiful in the way he lived for pleasure and lived in the moment. He held one principle, that of want, take, have, and for a while it had been Lex that he'd wanted, and Lex hadn't minded at all. He'd known what he was getting into, and he was okay with it, as long as Julian remained untouched.

But now Julian was anything but untouched, and Lex was realizing that he hadn't known what he was getting into, not at all. For the first time in his life, he had no idea what he was supposed to do next, no spin, no clever plan.

He might have stood there forever, lost in thought, if Clark hadn't come up to him, too close for comfort, and set something on the edge of the table between them. Lex frowned down at the little lead box that sat there, out-of-place against the polished wood of the table.

"What is this, anyway?" he asked.

"Just open it," Clark said. Lex glanced at him- if it were anyone else he'd say that Clark looked nervous, but that couldn't be it.

He wanted to ask, but he couldn't, so instead, he just opened the box.

Inside was a little green stone, barely bigger than his thumbnail, on a little silver chain. He picked it up and held it to the light, recognizing it easily from some of his father's laboratories he'd made sure to clean out, and from Chloe Sullivan's Wall of Weird. Meteor rock, refined, and set into a lovely little necklace. How odd.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clark stagger, and it was only then that he looked over and realized that Clark was sick, very sick. His normally tan skin had gone deathly pale, and his hand, resting on the edge of the table next to Lex's, looked anything but human, the veins a sickly green and _moving,_ like they were trying to crawl out of his skin.

"What the- Clark, are you all right?" He tried to move closer, to find out what was wrong, but Clark staggered away, his eyes fixed on the necklace in Lex's hand.

"It's the meteor rock," Clark said, his voice hoarse like he was forcing it through a knot in his throat. "It's my only weakness."

If anyone had asked him before how he'd react in this situation, he might not have had an answer, because who could possibly predict this situation? But he was almost certain that it wouldn't have been what he actually did, which was to immediately drop the necklace back into the box and slam it shut.

Clark immediately relaxed, his skin snapping weirdly back to its normal healthy golden glow and the veins in his hands lying still under his skin. "Thanks," he said, sounding like himself again, too. "That stuff… really hurts."

Lex stared at him, not just because moments before he'd looked like he was dying and now he was fine, but because moments before, he'd looked like he was dying, and all from a little piece of green rock that he'd willingly given into Lex's hands. He'd handed over his potential doom like it was a pair of Christmas socks, and he'd handed it over to a _Luthor._

It was in that moment that he realized that he might have known Kal, as far as it went, but he didn't know Clark Kent _at all._

He didn't know what he would have done- stared at Clark for the next century or so, maybe- if he hadn't heard the heavy front door slam shut and a familiar pair of booted footsteps coming down the stone hallway. Julian appeared in the doorway to his office, looking surprised- and delighted- to see Clark standing there.

"Clark!" he said, and closed the distance between them so fast that for a moment Lex thought he'd actually teleported. He beamed up at Clark like it was Christmas morning, and Clark responded by draping an arm halfway around his shoulders and tweaking the tail end of his ponytail.

"Hey, you," he said softly, and his smile wasn't quite as blinding, but it was every bit as warm as Julian's. Lex felt oddly like a voyeur, even though they weren't doing anything, didn't even hold a gaze longer than a few seconds, because even that handful of seconds and matching smiles had been more intimate than many full-blown makeout sessions he'd had the chance to witness.

"Well, since you're here, you can have breakfast with us, right?" Julian asked. "I think Helga can feed even you, if she really puts her back into it."

"Sounds good to me," Clark said, and turned a paler version of his smile towards Lex. "You in?"

He obviously wasn't all that welcome, no matter what either one of them could say right now. So he made himself forget all of his worries and objections to the two of them, and he made himself shrug and say, "Actually, I think I'm going to go back to bed for a few hours. Make sure that Helga saves some leftovers for me."

Julian gave him a look that said he wasn't as hard to read as he thought he was, and that Lex was in for it later when Julian actually had time to figure out what was going on, but Clark was here, and Julian apparently wasn't willing to pass that up while he had the chance. So he shrugged too, and said, "Okay," and promptly dragged Clark out of the room, aimed kitchen-ward.

Clark looked over his shoulder at Lex right before he went through the doorway, and his look said any number of things, but Lex didn't know how to translate any of them. So he just stood there, and when he couldn't hear their voice anymore, his gaze went back to the lead box, still sitting so innocently on the side of the pool table.

He had some thinking to do.

* * *

It was maybe a day later when he told her the truth. Chloe sat and listened and reminded herself for the billionth time to be grateful that Clark may have learned the word "secret" even before the word "tractor," but he was conditioned to tell _her_ the truth, at least. She couldn't imagine what kind of trouble he'd've gotten himself into along the way if he hadn't had her riding shotgun.

Kind of like the trouble he was in right now, she guessed. "Clark. Seriously. Are you insane? What the hell do you think you're doing? He's Lex fucking Luthor, Clark. Maybe Lex isn't up to his father's standards, but he's still a Luthor, in the way that Julian isn't. He's _dangerous._ Even to you. Especially to you, now that handed over your secret weakness on a silver platter. Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?"

"He won't kill me, Chloe." Clark sounded very certain of that, certain enough that she wondered where he was getting this insight. The dumb puppy Clark that she'd once been able to gently manipulate out of trouble was long gone, and in his place was a boy who could think circles around her, and still have time to do chores before breakfast.

"Maybe not, but he's sure as hell got the advantage now." Christ, she had enough of her own problems, her own sorrows. Pete still had his own little sore place in her heart, where she sometimes thought about the boy he could have been, if things were different. "Clark. What kind of game are you playing, here? Because the stakes just got a lot higher."

"Chloe, when I… Look. This summer, there was only one time that I gave a damn about anything, and that was when I was with him. One week out of three months when I wasn't dead inside." He crossed his arms defensively over his chest, and his eyes were dark with passion in a way she hadn't seen since that last agonizing moment before he'd slid the ring onto his finger. His hair stuck out where he'd run his hands through it, and he looked so much like his fourteen-year-old self, telling her his secret for the very first time, that her heart damn near skipped a beat. "You never asked me why I came home. After that summer, I mean. You forgave me, but you never asked any questions."

"I figured you'd tell me when you were ready," she said softly, a little startled by the change of subject. She felt like she was talking to some kind of skittish wild animal that might bolt at any minute. For all she knew, he would. She never had been able to predict him worth a damn. "You always do."

He barked out a painful-sounding laugh. "Yeah, I guess I do." He sighed and turned away. She stared at his back like it held the secrets of the universe. "It was right after the week I spent with Lex. He was making noises about his brother coming home and not having the place to himself anyway, and I knew what he was implying, I wasn't fucking _stupid,_ but I almost didn't go. Can you believe that? I wanted him so badly, I almost fucking refused to walk out his damn door, almost stayed there and made him mine forever."

"So what stopped you?" she asked. She hadn't heard him curse this much in a long time. Not that he kept his mouth clean, not away from his parents, but he wasn't like this. Never like this.

"His face. He knew what I was thinking. And you know what? He would've let me. Fuck his business, fuck his family, fuck everything. If I'd wanted to keep him, I could have, and he wouldn't have said a word against it. That scared me so damn badly, I walked out without even kissing him goodbye and smashed the ring two blocks away. Even on the rock, I knew how dangerous that was. No conscience, and that made me hesitate. Get it?"

She did, and it scared her too, because just like Clark, she could see all the implications, all the potential disastrous futures that could have come about if someone with Lex's power followed someone like Kal.

"And even now, even knowing that, I can't stay away. You say I'm playing a game with him? Well, maybe I am. Maybe it's the only thing he understands. And if I am, God, how could I resist? He's like a drug, Chlo. He's like the red K, only way more dangerous."

He slumped into a chair, dropping his head into his hands. His next words came out muffled by his palms.

"But I'm not playing a game, Chloe. That's the worst part about this whole mess. I'm not playing a game with him at all."

"Oh, Clark," she said softly. She could no more have resisted going to him then than she could have changed the movements of the tides. She wrapped her arms around him, and wondered when it had happened that he didn't fit into her arms anymore. "Oh, Clark, honey. You always make everything so hard on yourself."

He didn't say anything, because what was there to say? So they just sat there in silence, Chloe holding onto her friend as hard as she could. They were taking a moment for themselves, and if, for the space of a few minutes, they wondered if it wouldn't be easier to just give up, nobody had to know but them.

tbc.


End file.
